Another Experience
I was once invited for an interview at a prominent medical university in southern Taiwan. This school is located in Kaohsiung, and the train takes about 6 hours to get their, so I flew. The interview, which was on May 4, went very well, and I was one of six candidates invited back two weeks later for a demonstration class. The demonstration also went well, and I was placed on an even shorter list for the position.
Up until this point, everything was extremely transparent. The demonstration class was open to the public, and other candidates watched me present. But this is where it began to get complicated. I didn't hear anything from the school. Other candidates I was in touch with had been told by the school that they had been short listed, so we just assumed I had been dropped from the list. Suddenly, four weeks later, I got an e-mail from them telling me I had been short listed, and they need some documents from me.
The school then asked for a copy of the complete manuscript of my graduate dissertation. They claimed that they needed this to confirm that my MA was at the same standard as an ROC master's degree. It was not a visa requirement, but merely something the school required above and beyond general requirements from the Ministry of Education. I wrote this in 1987; fortunately, I compulsively keep this sort of thing and was able to phone my dad to get the original sent to me. The other candidates were not so lucky. None of them still had their graduate dissertations lying around and were not able to produce the complete manuscript. By default, I was the last person left.
I knew I was the last person left because they had told me this. Imagine my surprise when I asked them if I had the job, and they replied, "No." Despite this, the department began to ask for documents to process my visa application. They would phone me and ask for one item. I would ask them if there was anything else I needed, and they would reply, "We don't know." This went on for weeks. Finally, they asked for a notarized copy of my graduate diploma. They told me three different ways to do this, and having done this successfully for my current job, I can say that none of them were correct.
I was supposed to start the job on August 1. By this time, they had still not been able to arrange a work permit. I gave up, and I never worked there.
7:10:55 PM 
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